Hunt for Ebola Host Turns to Bats, Monkeys

29 May 2011

Nairobi — Ugandan medics are studying the transmission chain of an Ebola outbreak in the country focusing on the possibility that some of those afflicted could have eaten fruits touched by bats and monkeys carrying the disease, as the country battles yet another outbreak which has killed one person.

A team of experts from the US’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organisation (WHO), PREDICT and Ugandan doctors is currently working on the case.

Although scientists cannot list all animals that are suspected to be ebola carriers, monkeys, bats and chimpanzees have been confirmed to carry the virus.

“We are now doing ecological studies looking at wild animals and bats. We have so far trapped 50 bats and some monkeys. Monkeys and bats are present in the Luwero where an infected girl died,” said Dr Issa Makumbi, the head of epidemiology at Uganda’s ministry of health. An earlier study by the Wildlife Conservation Society in 2005 showed that the ebola outbreaks that occurred between 2001 and 2003 in DR Congo and Gabon were traced to handling of infected wild animal carcasses.

The study found that gorillas, chimpanzees and duiker produced positive ebola test results. The study also found direct links between the deadly disease in animal population and humans.

Luwero, where a five-year bush war was fought and won by the forces of President Yoweri Museveni 25 years ago, also still maintains the culture of game meat consumption. It is here where the single victim, a 12-year old girl was presented to a clinic with acute hemorrhagic fever on May 3.

Subsequent laboratory investigations at the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe confirmed ebola Sudan type on May 13. Blood samples were also taken to the CDC headquarters in the US for additional analysis and sequencing.

Although several cases have been reported from different parts of the country, no new case has been confirmed and monitoring of the 25 people who came in contact with the first victim has so far returned negative results for the virus and they were due to be declared free of the virus on May 28.

In all, 21 people have been tested and produced negative results except the dead girl. If no more positive tests show up by June 23, the country will be declared ebola free. By press time, four people were however in the isolation centre being monitored.

Ebola is spread through direct physical contact with body fluids of an infected person and consumption of animals carrying the virus. The survival rate of ebola is only at 10 per cent because of the acute nature of attacks characterised by high fever and loss of body liquids that leads to dehydration and blood shortage.

Ebola was first detected in 1976 in DR Congo. This year is the third time for the disease to erupt in Uganda. The first epidemic occurred in 2000/2001 in northern Uganda where 425 people were infected and over 200 died including a doctor who was treating them. In 2007, the disease claimed 37 lives after 149 people got infected in the western Uganda district of Bundibugyo, on the border with DR Congo.

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